October 18, 2005

I bought an electric toothbrush today. I was on one of those shopping errands, where you go into a big store -- in this case, Target -- needing maybe one thing -- in this case, toothpaste -- but you start to ideate furiously from the moment you park the car about what other things you could possibly buy so it won't seem so foolish to go to all this trouble to buy just that one thing. Yeah, Halloween candy. I need a lot of that. But why not a nice electric toothbrush to go with that toothpaste. That's a satisfying combo. It even seems to relate to the candy. I find some other things and finally check out to the tune of $272. Good thing I made sense of that errand, because otherwise I might have just spent $3.

Anyway, I got to thinking about the last time I had an electric toothbrush. It was back in the 1960s, when the first electric toothbrush was introduced in the United States: the Broxodent! I had to Google to jog my memory about that brand name. (I found this article, which contains the info: "most Americans did not brush their teeth until Army soldiers brought their enforced habits of tooth brushing back home after World War II. " Oh my!)

I remember feeling incredibly lucky to have this new device, even though it was hard to control. It lacked an on-off switch, believe it or not. You had to squeeze the "brakes," two black pads on opposite sides of the handle. It was not easy for a kid to do.

Now that I think about it, I realize my parents were kind of into gadgets. They got central air conditioning before anyone else in the neighborhood. My father built electronic things from kits and built in various speakers around the house. He had a device for planting "plugs" of zoysia grass, which were supposed to spread into the most amazingly beautiful lawn, but never did. And he was quite fond of his "Contour Chair" (which seemed futuristic at the time, but now would be associated with blood donation, I think).

Where am I going with this post? Oh, I don't know. Just trying to accumulate more things at this point. Kind of like that shopping trip!

ziemer said...lmeade,i do hope you read my followup comment in the baby boomer thread.i was mortified when i came home and read how it was being interpreted.

Help me out then, ziemer... "unmitigated optimism" and "mortified" strike me as hyperbole used for sardonicism. No? Am I just another jaded old boomer with thinning skin and frivolous fondness for the Fab Four? Put me out of my misery, please.

Fine. Now can we please get back to Zoysia grass? I didn't find a thing about using toothbrushes (electric or otherwise) for cultivating zoysia grass in that monograph by Richard L. Duble, Turfgrass Specialist Texas Cooperative Extension.

I am sorry--the interpretation (misinterpretation) of that post had its genesis with me, I know!

I'm seriously sorry, Zeimer, that I put forth a spin you evidently did not intend. Sincerely, I wasn't sure how to take what you wrote because I wasn't sure of the color--but am more than willing to acknowledge that I was putting it through my own lens.

While I might not agree with any particular post, I truly do not wish to co-opt someone's intent.

Indeed it is all okay. Now chins up, dudes... the cool girls are here and sensitivity in men goes only just so far with them before they start to cringe and walk away (Rene). It's 2005 - time for long pants and manliness and that means no over-explaining, no sitting at home, and NO BEATLE HAIRCUTS!

What happens with an electric toothbrush? I haven't made the acquaintance of this device. It sounds like something I wouldn't like...I loathe the polisher at the dentist's. Annoyingly ticklesome. For my hygeine satisfaction, nothing beats a vigorous flossing with a Lysterine chaser. And not the new kinder, gentler Lysterine. Give me the hard stuff.

Reading your post, it seems like you're hiding something. That is, you don't seem indifferent about this splurge. You've blogged in dissatisfied tones (putting it mildly) about your house full of stuff many times, and here you are acquiring more new stuff. What's going on? Is this a cry for help? Do your readers (and listeners) need to organize an intervention?

Ann, was your father doing Heathkits? I loved Heathkits, you could build anything electronic if you could read and solder. At the end, turning it on, seeing it work, oh man, almost as good as...never mind. So much fun.

Victoria:As for the general Althouse public, I'm sure a smart British chick like you would realize that a BRIT talking about ORAL HYGIENE is a huge pot/kettle moment. Or at least a moment for us oral "freaks of nature" to laugh at our cousins across the pond....or in South Florida, as the case may be.

Victoria:As for the general Althouse public, I'm sure a smart British chick like you would realize that a BRIT talking about ORAL HYGIENE is a huge pot/kettle moment. Or at least a moment for us oral "freaks of nature" to laugh at our cousins across the pond....or in South Florida, as the case may be.

Hey! I have beauty-ful teeth!

Anyway, I wasn't making FUN of Americans -- I can't imagine where you got that from my lauding American dentists, calling them the best and most innovative of their day.

Being British I feel I am most qualified to talk about teeth. (ahem) When i told my grandmother in an offhand comment that I have an electric toothbrush she said "oooh aren't you posh." Which tells you everything you need to know about British oral hygiene.

On a side note my Gran said exactly the same thing when I told her it was snowing. In true British working class style she thought I could afford it!

1 - British people (and most of Europe in my experience) are not as obsessed with perfectly straight white teeth as many Americans seem to be. Having natural colored uneven teeth isn't considered to be unsightly. Since moving to the US three and a half years ago I've been to the dentist more times than I did in the previous ten years.

I agree with Chuck, there's some kind of missing thing in the account from electric toothbrush to $273. Perhaps the extra purchases were over-overt class markers or lapses of self-control that didn't want to be revealed.

Noumenon: Okay, I'll look at the register receipt. The other items are not "class markers," unless you consider a $17 earpiece for my cell phone a class marker. Everything else was just toiletries or cleaning products -- plus one $30 Christmas present. And as I said a lot of Halloween candy.

Yeah, it starts with Smarties. Next, you try crushed and cut Sweet Tart powder on licorice sticks. Finally you find yourself lying in a culvert under a bridge just outside of Reno, strung out from being awake for three days after speed-balling Pixie Sticks and Warheads, not sure if that man you killed was real or a hallucination from the fever-dreams. Ah, those were the days....

Ann: maybe what's missing is my conception of the spontaneous shopping trip. What you listed fills the gap pretty well, don't worry about the receipt. I'm a very reluctant shopper who rarely charges more than $50 at a time, so let's not worry about reconciling our shopping habits.

Go ahead and laugh, Icepick. But the next thing you know, you will be compulsively checking your site meter and drooling on your last pair of long pants while counting therefore symbols and chasing after phantom Kate Mosses naked in high heeled boots.